Wednesday, June 01, 2011

CityBites Media, publishers of the bi-monthly Toronto food magazine CityBites, has partnered with the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance (OCTA) to create a new publication called Ontario Culinary Adventure Guide. It's a 36-page handbook dedicated to regional farmer's markets, agricultural celebrations, taste trails, craft breweries and winery tours, according to a story in Marketing magazine.

About 50,000 copies of the guide were distributed through the Globe and Mail and an additional 50,000 are being distributed at Ontario Tourism centres, through restaurants and cafes and at "travel hubs". A digital version is available.

“Culinary tourism is obviously exploding around the world these days with massive interest in all things epicurean and local food,” said Dick Snyder, owner and editor of CityBites, who said that future plans for the guide include a more “robust” website as well as a mobile strategy.

“We really wanted to jump in and get a printed product out there, because we only really came up with this idea in December. But I think it’s imperative that we go digital [with a] mobile version of the website and probably a discovery-type app.

“I think there’s a natural fit with culinary tourism where you can get editorial, maps, directions and you can mine social media at the same time to see what people are saying about it.”